


on wings relearning to fly

by gravityinglass



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, amnesia au, it's sort of weird tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:12:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravityinglass/pseuds/gravityinglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry had thought the worst part was when Louis opened his eyes and there was no recognition there. He was wrong.</p><p>OR<br/>an amnesia AU whereupon Louis is in an accident and loses his memory, and Harry tries to help him regain it.<br/>Inspired by the AU meme by princeharrehs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on wings relearning to fly

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [we were emergencies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/405828) by [gyzym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyzym/pseuds/gyzym). 



> i don't even know where to start with how much this thing ruined my life. 13k in less than a week. fuck everything, man. just fuck everything.  
> i also wrote the sex scene during my bible class. one way express ticket to hell, please.  
> thanks to taylor for beta and being a shameless enabler.
> 
> this work was inspired by gyzym's amazing avengers fic, we were emergencies. we were emergencies is one of my favorite fics of all time, despite me not being an clint/natasha fan or even a large part (or any part) of the avengers fandom. the title on wings relearning to fly comes from a line in we were emergencies (quoted below at the opening of the fic), and the closing quote too comes from we were emergencies. i never thought i'd write anything even remotely similar, and yet i did; i stand by the fact that we were emergencies is better than anything i could ever write, and one of the best pieces of literature i have ever read, fic or no. i have read it so many times i have lost count; all i know is that it's a gorgeous piece that stuck in my head and my heart.  
> we were emergencies tells the story of clint and natatsha, and it involves magic and friendship and assassins in love, and specific memory loss; on wings relearning to fly is the story of harry and louis, and it involves fame and familiy and closeted boybanders and blanket memory loss. we were emergencies has influence, but i did my best to tell a different story about different people.  
> as a result there is a sex scene in on wings relearning to fly that is somewhat similar to a sex scene in we were emergencies, but i tried very hard to keep them separate and different; if she comes to me and tells me she thinks it is too close to hers, i will gladly take it down, becuase we were emergencies is amazing, and i know what it is like to be plagarized.  
> in the end, they are both recovery stories and love stories and stories where people are hurt, and while i hope i did the topic justice, she certainly did so much better than i ever could.  
> that's about all, i guess.

 

  
_"...he's been proven one too many times that control is a gift, not a guarantee; that safety is anything but permanent; that whatever is here now, caught between them on wings relearning to fly, could be gone again tomorrow._ " -we were emergencies, gyzym

\--

Louis was lucky, the doctors said. He got off without too much physical damage, only a handful of bruises. He was lucky, they said, because he hadn't died, but he was unconscious in a hospital bed, and hadn't woken for two weeks.

Harry doesn't see how that is lucky.

The doctors held out hope, they said, but they didn't know when he'd wake up--if he'd wake up.

Harry doesn't see how that is lucky, either.

Management had given them a month off. They hadn't been happy about it, but it was pretty obvious they weren't getting any of the boys out of the hospital so long as Louis was still there. Even now that Niall had been discharged, arm in an ungainly blue cast and new pins holding his left knee and right hip together, the others still crowd into Louis' hospital room (because they were One Direction and One Direction apparently did not convalesce in hospital wards, no matter how much they protested that they were still normal people) and waited for news, for Louis to sit up and crack a joke, for this whole thing to _be_ a joke, but nothing changes and the steady heart monitor reminds them of that beep by constant beep.

(Harry mostly tries not to think of the dead and how Louis' still body looks like the four corpses he'd seen.)

\--

Louis, in typical Louis fashion, only wakes up once they'd all been sent home for the night.

A nurse had walked in and found Louis trying to disentangle himself from the various lines and wires, and was promptly told, "Don't mind me; I tend to wander weird places when I'm drunk."

The nurse had explained Louis had been in a minor accident, checked him for concussion, and put him back to bed sans IV.

The next morning, when the boys arrive, Louis awakes for a second time and very promptly doesn't recognize any of them.

\--

Waking up in a hospital isn't exactly something Louis isn't used to. The screaming, at least, is a bit surprising, but Louis has woken up to seven separate people in his ward vomiting from a major case of food poisoning. Screaming is a definite step up. He doesn't think it's his sisters--their voices aren't so deep, Daisy and Phoebe especially, being so young. Maybe his footie team snuck in to see him again, but he doesn't quite recognize the voices.

"His heartbeat changed!" a voice says, in near hysterics. "He's awake!" Louis doesn't think he knows anyone with an Irish accent, and it was a little weird how this guy knows about his heartbeat, which is definitely increasing with apprehension. But then he remembers he's in hospital and realizes the guy is probably shouting for his own friend in another bed. Such is the way of a hospital ward. Louis does with they'd send him out, since shouting isn't exactly nice to patients, never mind that Louis is guilty of doing the same on multiple occasions.

His body feels strange, like his muscles aren't his own, but he manages to force his eyes open and sits up to tell off the screamer. He barely had his mouth open and a lecture on the tip of his tongue when he's suddenly tackled by someone big and warm and with a head full of dark, curly hair.

What the _fuck_?

"Thank god, thank god, thank god," the person chants in a very male voice, and Louis blinks in confusion before suddenly the person is kissing him.

As the person is not Hannah, Louis is very surprised and pushes the person off with a sudden show of strength.

"If you're a nurse, that's very forward of you, and also very illegal. Well. I mean, I'm over the age of consent, but you should probably not kiss patients." Louis is startled by the sudden silence in the room. "Wait, Stan paid you to do that, didn't he? Hannah's going to murder you, and then me, and she'll take Stan after that. You should probably run; Hannah's quite terrifying when she wants to be."

That's about when Louis manages to get a good look at his surroundings and realizes he's in a private room (wait, why the fuck isn't he in a ward like usual?), and then realizes he doesn't recognize any of the people scattered around the room.  The bloke who'd just kissed him looks stunned and hurt; the blond man--well, late teen, maybe--looks a little shocked; and the other two look somewhere between angry, horrified, and shocked. They are absolutely no one Louis knows, so obviously the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "You're not my mum."

"No, we're not?" the one with the mostly shaved head says. He looks sort of like he might be in the army. Does Louis know anyone in the army? "Why would we be?"

"Well, she's my emergency contact," Louis suggests. "And the nurse last night said I was in hospital after an accident, and everyone knows that means Stan and I were fucking around and one of us did something stupid and ended up here. It's happened enough we know all the staff, and I know hospital procedures better than most of the nurses on night rotation. On that note, where the hell am I, and who the fuck are you?"

"This isn't a funny joke, Louis," the dark haired one says. "I know you think you've got a unique opportunity for pranks, but really. Harry had a _panic attack_."

"Who's Harry?" Louis asks, and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because the curly-haired bloke who'd kissed him gasps and sprints out of the room, looking like he's about to cry. "I'm guessing that was Harry. Why would he have a panic attack over me? Am I his first patient or something? Are you all doctors in training?" he says, figuring it out. "Oh, you must be. That's why there's four of you, and why you're I'm in a private room, so you can learn better. So you're here for like, internships and whatnot?"

Something dawns on the blond's face, apprehension and terror. "Louis, what year is it?"

"What _year_ is it?" Louis chokes out, then shrugs. He was in an accident, maybe they're checking him for concussion. Either way, the answer is pretty simple. "It's 2009. If you want the date, yesterday was a Friday, Friday the eleventh of May. Stan and I had footie practice until late, and I guess I must have hit my head falling off a wall or something. How long have I been out? Is my mum on her way?"

"Louis, it's 2014," the one with the mostly shaved head tells him gravely, face suddenly pale and looking like he's going to burst into tears. That's really not something a doctor should do, is it? "It's the sixteenth of January, 2014."

Louis is entirely unimpressed. "You're mental. Last week was Gianna's seventeeth birthday and we all got trashed. If it were, what, five years ago like you say, I wouldn't remember it as well as I do, right?"

"We're your best friends, Lou," says the blond, and Louis shakes his head because, well, no, that's not right. "Harry's your boyfriend," he adds.

"Stan's my best friend, has been since before we could walk. And I haven't got a boyfriend, I've got a Hannah. We've been dating a month," he says, a little proudly, because, well, _Hannah_. "But she doesn't like being called my girlfriend, we've not been dating long enough, she says.  Hannah's a bit weird, but it's a good weird. But you can't possibly be who you say you are, because my memory's fine."

"Fucking hell," the dark haired one says at the same time the one with the shaved head says, "No, Louis, it's really not."

That's about when everything goes to hell.

\--

Louis refuses to believe he's in London and it's 2014 until his mum comes in with Lottie, and Lottie's so clearly not the girl he remembers, so much bigger, and his mum looks older and that _scares_ him.

"I heard you were in a bit of trouble with the nurses this morning, Boobear," his mum says, and that's enough for Louis to burst into tears, curling into her side.

"They kept telling me stuff that can't be true, they said Stan wasn't my best friend anymore, that they were, and that's it's 2014, and Mum, I can't remember the past five years of my life. Everyone was acting so strange, and I'm _scared_ , Mum."

"I'd assume that's why the doctors kicked them out," Lottie says dryly, and hey, she's not supposed to have picked up his sarcasm, that's _his_ thing.

He might end up having a panic attack.

It's not very dignified, but Louis is pretty sure he's well within his rights to freak out here, because. Well. He's twenty-two, not seventeen, and he's apparently lost five years of his life, and his sisters are bigger and he missed that, and he has tattoos and a guy calling himself Louis' boyfriend and Stan's in uni somewhere far away and apparently he hasn't been dating Hannah for four years and that's about when they tranquilize him so he can't hyperventilate himself into another coma.

A coma.

The doctor explains it to him nicely, sympathetically. She's in her forties, soft red hair pulled back into a braid, and she doesn't treat him like he's gone insane. Instead, she simply gives him a laundry list of what's happened to him and what they'll do to help him, and Louis is so, so grateful. He was in a car crash and was knocked into a coma, with minor bruising and luckily, no damaged organs or even broken bones, only bumps and bruises. The other person in the car with him had to have surgery on his hip and knee, and had a broken arm. The four people in the other car had all died either on impact or later of their injuries.

But somehow, Louis has lost five years of memory and no one knows why, or if he'll ever get it back.

The other weird thing is that no one will tell him what's in doing in--god--2014.

Louis assumes he's at uni, in his final year after having taken a gap year to get his head in order. He's probably going for a teaching certification in English or Drama. Those four boys were probably uni friends, or housemates, or something. Maybe they all share classes, or something.

Eventually one of the boys shows up to Louis' hospital room--and that's another weird thing, how no one will explain why he's got his own room, because coma patients can sleep on a ward all they want. The one who shows up is the one with the buzz cut, the one Louis thinks is in the military, and he introduces himself as Liam Payne and explains he's going to help answer questions and see if Louis can remember anything. The nice doctor follows him in and sits in the corner.

"Are you in the army?" is the first thing Louis asks. Liam Payne startles and laughs.

"Nah, I just like the haircut," he says easily, and Louis can tell how he must like this bloke, because most people would glare at him for being so blunt. "And the tattoos aren't military related, they're all personal choices, a lot like yours really."

"So do we go the same uni, then? I'm guessing one of the ones here in London. Are we dormmates or something?"

The man looks taken aback. "Um. No. We don't--we don't go to the same uni."

"But we are friends." The nice doctor--Louis thinks her name is Dr. Hall, but he's admittedly not sure--is laughing very hard.

"Very good friends." Liam holds out a mobile phone and Louis takes it gingerly. "I brought your mobile. Maybe some of the contacts or the photos will trigger something."

It's a much nicer phone than Louis is expecting, but hell, it's the future. Maybe all nice phones are holographic and this is considered a piece of shit. He taps the screen and a lock code comes up.

"Password?"

"Um, Harry said to tell you the word is the same as it's always been, but you'll have a number code, and that's 02199401.

Louis nods, enters 'swagmaster' into the password field and then taps out the number, struggling a bit with the touch-screen. "I wonder why I chose that number," he says as he finally fits enter. "I can't figure it out, because that's not a number I even vaguely recognize."

"You had your reasons," Liam says, looking a little uncomfortable. "Hey, try your contacts, they've got photos attached."

Louis navigates to the contacts section with some difficulty--yeah, he's not a fan of touch screens--and starts scrolling down the list.

"The starred ones are your speed dials. You don't really call anyone that isn't starred," Liam offers, so Louis focuses on those because, Christ, there are a lot of names in this phone. He wonders if he's some sort of socialite or something, because there is no way he actually knows this many people.

"Here's you," Louis says after a moment. Sure enough, the entry reads 'Liam Payne' and directly below are four different phone numbers--house, mobile, and two unidentified numbers. His photo is of him holding a wineglass and has one arm around a pretty woman with wildly curly hair.

"That's me and my girlfriend, Danielle. You took that at your 22nd birthday party and only changed the photo once I deleted my old contact photo off your phone. It used to be a picture of me sleeping and you and Niall had stuffed Cheetos up my nose."

"That does sound like me," Louis admits. "Here's Stan--wow, he looks different--and a guy named Ed?"

"He's on your speed dials?" Liam says with surprise. "Huh, I didn't think you were that close, but then again, Ed and Harry are close, so that would explain that."

Ed's photo shows a man with messy red hair, who looks sort of like a hippie, a bit, and he definitely looks a bit too old to be in uni. Louis wonders how they became friends. He feels like it would be a good story.

Eight contacts after Ed is the blond man--his arm's not broken in this photo--who'd asked Louis what year it was. His name is Niall Horan, apparently, and his photo is him shirtless and eating fried chicken during some sort of drinking game. For whatever reason, Louis is absolutely not surprised, even though he doesn't know this guy at all.

"Niall Horan?"

Liam takes one look at the contact photo and snorts. "Of course that's your contact photo for him. Yeah, Niall likes drinking, girls, and food, and that's about all he cares about, other than us." He shrugs. "When we all met, Niall and I were roommates."

Dr Hall snorts. Both Louis and Liam ignore her.

Then comes a strange entry, only titled Babycakes. The photo is simply a stuffed teddy bear with a coffee mug. Louis blinks, wonders what the hell he's doing with his life that this is someone in his speed dial contacts, and scrolls past it.

After 'Babycakes' and six other contacts comes Zayn Malik, the dark haired man who'd been angry at Louis for joking. His contact photo shows him grinning widely, standing in front of a roller coaster with a purple-haired woman.

"Ah, that's Perrie. She should be in your contacts too?"

"Is this not alphabetical?"

"Knowing you, it's organized by blood type," Liam deadpans. "No, I think it's random. You can pick alphabetical if you'd like, but you're probably halfway through by now, so keep going."

Louis learns names and faces and hears stories from Liam, but nothing triggers any sort of memory. Finally, he comes across an entry for the man with curly hair. It's a nearly empty entry, a surprise after the full entries he'd read before. It's not even one of his speed dial contacts--just a name (Harry Styles, apparently) and a single phone number, a neat row of numerals. His contact photo looks like a mug shot, less personal than any photo Louis seems to have on his phone.

"I must really hate this guy," Louis remarks, when he looks at the texts between their phones. "The only texts I've got from him are telling me I'm late and to pick up my dirty laundry. And I call him a lot of very nasty things in reply."

Liam chokes on air, as does Dr Hall. " _Harry_? You're dating him, Lou." Liam sends a furtive glance at Dr Hall. "I've walked in on you two fucking enough times to know that."

"If I was dating him, I would never text...let's see, 'you douchebag cockbite' at him, and he would never compare me to...'a squirrel with ADHD and psychopathic personality disorders.' That's really quite rude, by the way, I've mostly gotten my ADHD under control I never had psychopath." Louis keeps scrolling. "Here's one where he calls me the worst ex ever." Louis stops, and blinks. "Did we date for a while and then break up, and he's still into me but I'm not into him? Is that why you're trying to convince me we're together? That's not cool, Liam. It's really not nice."

Liam sighs in exasperation. "You two adore each other, it's ridiculous. You've never broken up, because you're best friends first and foremost, and lovers second. You live together. You were his guardian for a year and a half. You don't text a lot, yeah, but that's because you're _always together_."

Louis is still soundly unimpressed. "Explain why I called him a pretentious hipster douchewaffle, then."

Liam winces. "Let me guess--December 28th?"

"Yes?"

"You got into a massive fight that day. Harry never said what it was, but I do know his best friend had his mobile for awhile and you absolutely hate him. It's quite possible you're reading texts from Nick using Louis' phone."

"I still don't believe you," Louis says firmly. "First you say Harry and I are best friends who never fight, and then you say we got into a huge fight. It doesn't match up. And besides, I'm not into boys like that."

Liam grins at that. "You weren't until you met Harry. You told us that over and over."

"I still think you're lying to me but--Liam, I don't remember any of what you're telling me. I don't know Harry, and the evidence I have says I don't like him, and I definitely don't like boys.  The way I am is the way I was five years ago, right? Fuck. I don't like missing memory."

"I keep forgetting that you are," Liam admits. "You're not so different even when you're five years less, and we always got along right from the start."

"Thank you?"

"It's just strange, is all." Liam shrugs. "Do you want me to answer questions, or anything?"

"The others who were here--who are they to me?"

Liam breaks out into a grin. "We're best friends, all five of us. You're still close to Stan, don't worry, but we five spend pretty much every waking minute together. You're mostly our leader--not because you're the oldest, but that's just your personality. You've gotten us into so much trouble, it's ridiculous. Zayn's the next oldest. He's really funny once you get to know him, smart as hell, weirdly pretty? We joke that everyone's a bit gone for Zayn. It's sort of impossible not to be. Um, he's got a girlfriend, Perrie. They're really cute together, but for whatever reason people frequently ask if I'm dating Zayn, which is categorically untrue. Um, he's a massive dork once you get to know him really well, so prepare to be bombarded with comic stuff, since you're the only one who'll put up with that sort of thing from here."

"What's in his pull box?"

"I don't understand the question."

"Which comics?"

Liam shrugs. "I really don't care, all I know is you and Zayn both tell me my taste in comics is horrible. Repeatedly, and at length."

"Okay, Zayn's the pretty one with dark hair. Moving on?"

"I'm right smack in the middle, age wise, and everyone jokes I'm the dad of the group since I'm usually the one trying to talk you out of bad ideas. I usually fail. You're probably closest to me, after Harry; we do stupid stuff and have bro dates that Harry categorically refuses to get jealous at, mainly because he has Nick as his best friend. Um, you talked me into my tattoos, and we went bungee jumping together once."

"Do we live together?"

"We did, for awhile. All five of us shared one room for about four months, and we crash at each other's places all the time. So, sometimes we live together, and sometimes we don't. We're all a bit codependent. Uh, after me, age-wise, is Niall. He's Irish, you probably got that from his accent. Loves to drink, bit of a playboy, we're not sure if he's in love with Justin Bieber or not--"

"Justin who?"

"Right, he would have gotten popular early 2010, so you wouldn't know him. Um, he's a singer, fairly decent, bit of a douchebag, but Niall adores his music for whatever reason. We're hoping he'll grow out of it."

"Uh, okay then."

"Yeah, pretty much." Liam grins. "Then, there's Harry. You're the only ones who still live together, and you have for...well. Four years, pretty much? You met in a bathroom before we all met as a group; your first word to him was 'hi' and his was 'oops'. You've got 'oops' tattooed on your arm in his handwriting, and he's got 'hi' in yours. Other forearm," Liam corrects when Louis goes to look, and sure enough, there's oops in a strangely familiar handwriting. "You have a ridiculous amount of tattoos that relate to each other, and you're sort of really grossly cute. What else--oh! You met when he was sixteen, and you eighteen, and you moved in together right after your nineteenth birthday, and you were his legal guardian for awhile. I think it helped you after the divorce--"

"After the divorce?"

"Yeah, after your mum and stepdad split--oh. Your memories don't go that far?"

"No, they don't," Louis says dryly, trying to keep his internal panic down. "Mum and Dad split?"

"Um. Yeah, they did, Lou," Liam says softly, suddenly treading on eggshells. "When we met you were really torn up about it even though you never said anything. We all just...knew."

"So we're close then." Louis desperately grabs onto the new topic,  and Liam lets him.

"Best of friends. Brothers from other mothers. Except for you and Haz, even though your families have all but adopted each other. You call Harry's mum 'mum' too, she calls you her son in law. Four years later and it's no less creepy how codependent how you always have been."

"I told you, I'm not into boys," Louis protests.

"But you're into Harry. Or. The future you is. The you with memories."

Louis sighs. "Okay, if Harry and I hated each other and fought all the time, just tell me, okay? I can't believe we were all that close if we barely text or call each other!"

"Well, you live together and you're in a band together," Zayn says, as he comes into the room with bags of fast food, followed by Niall and Harry. "Of course you're close.

There's dead silence. "I'm...in a band?" Louis says hesitantly, and Zayn doesn't seem to notice that everyone is glaring at him.

"Yeah, One Direction. Boyband, world-famous, all that. Here, photos." He gestured to Louis' phone, and Louis opens the photo app and there are photos of them on stage, in magazines, and suddenly Louis is freaking out even more than he had been. "You can stop pretending, we all know."

"I'm in a boyband," Louis says, voice starting to shake.

"Zayn, he wasn't joking," Liam says firmly, and Zayn suddenly pales. "He really doesn't remember anything."

"Fuck," Zayn says weakly. "I'm so sorry, Lou."

"I'm in a boyband," Louis repeats, sounding more a bit hysterical. "I'm in a world famous, ridiculously successful boyband."

"Breathe, Lou," Liam tells him, holding out his hands to calm Louis down. "Deep breaths."

" I'm in a boyband and you didn't think this was _relevant information_?" Louis shrieks. Zayn takes an unconscious half-step back; Louis in a rage, even Louis in a rage without knowledge of their weak spots, was terrifying. "Oh my god, that explains why I have such a nice phone, why I was the only legal adult when we met, why I'm in a private room, and why no one will tell me what university I was going to or what I'm supposed to be studying. That's why there's so many _flowers_."

"Calm down, Louis."

"Don't tell me to calm down, I'm in a fucking boyband, how the hell did that even happen anyways?" Louis looks ready to cry. "One Direction, that's really our name, how long have we been together, how the fuck am I in a boyband, that's not even my _vocal style_."

"Louis, if you hyperventilate, they'll have to sedate you," Niall warns. "You really need to breathe."

"Why won't anyone answer my questions?" Louis yelps.

"Because we don't want to freak you out." It's the first time Harry's talked since walking into the room and he looks tired and scared and sad. Now, he moves to sit on the bed and pulls Louis into his side. Instinctively, Louis curls into Harry's side, and his breathing evens out to mirror Harry's own; but if anything, Louis seems even more freaked out by his body's unconscious reaction to Harry. "It still freaks us out, and we've had four years to get used to it. You just woke up, and you haven't got any memories to back it up."

Harry's syrup slow voice manages to calm Louis down enough he can breathe normally.

"Tell me some of it, though. Please?"

"Um, we're One Direction," Niall offers. "We had a lot more homoerotic names before picking that, so be grateful."

"We met and were formed on X-Factor," Liam adds. "Came in third place, but we're still the most successful thing out of X-Factor ever."

Zayn grins. "We just finished our second sold-out world tour and we're gearing up for our third album."

"We've got so many awards it's insane," Harry says. "But we'd still be a band even if the band was a flop."

"Am I really dating Harry?" Louis asks, his voice small. "I can't imagine anyone being happy about two members of a boyband being together. It would explain the lack of evidence, and. I mean, my phone says we aren't, but. Am I? Are we?"

Everyone suddenly silences. "Yeah, you are," Zayn says finally. Harry was staring at his hands, though he still held Louis close enough that Louis could feel his heartbeat speed up. "But it's complicated, and really difficult for both of you."

"We're closeted," Harry says. "We're celebrating four years this February, but you've got a fake girlfriend and I've got to pretend to be a serial womanizer. A lot of our fans think we're fucking or together, and we've never confirmed or denied it, but. We're really gone for each other."

It's the most Louis' heard Harry say since waking up, and scarily, the words feel true.

"This whole thing feels like a soap opera," Louis says quietly, and everyone laughs.

"It sort of is?" Harry says. "But. I love you. I loved you from day one, when we met in the bathroom, and day two when we ended up in a band, and somewhere in the middle where you kissed me and we never slowed down and I love you every day between then and now. I'll love you until I die, I think."

Louis bit his lip. "I didn't know."

"You don't remember, but you knew. Now you _know_ , and you still don't remember, but you will."

\--

"So, I have an idea," Harry says, and everyone immediately sets down whatever they're doing to glare at him. "No, it's a good idea, I promise!"

"Let's hear the idea before passing judgment," Zayn suggests. "Harry?"

"Well, I was thinking. Louis' not ready to handle the media in any way, shape, or form, right? Not without his memories or at least a crash course in...well. Everything. And no one's at the bungalow, right? So Louis and I could go to the bungalow for a week and I can teach him all about One Direction and see if we can't trigger any of his memories to come back. And if that doesn't work, we can release a press statement about it and decide where to go from there, if Louis needs to learn everything all over again or if we need to start looking for a...replacement."

Somehow, Harry gets his bungalow plan approved. Louis freaks out a bit when he finds out, but Liam reassures him it's a good plan, and combined with Harry's guileless puppy eyes and Louis' own curiosity, it's enough to get Louis to agree.

Their security team sneaks him out of the hospital, knowing Louis isn't ready to face the media; Harry meets them ten miles outside of London with two bags of clothing, three cartons of groceries and other miscellaneous items all stacked neatly in the backseat of his Range Rover. They settle Louis in the front passenger seat and give Harry stern outcare instructions. Harry listens to them solemnly and waves as security vanishes back into their car.

"So, you ready?" Harry asks, sliding into the driver's seat. He grins at Louis, and it's so happy, so infectious, that Louis can't help but grin back.

"I think so? Teach me about me, Mr. Styles."

Harry only laughs and pulls out onto the main road; the security SUV follows behind them.

They don't talk much on the drive to the bungalow. Louis loses track of time, alternately dozing and watching the scenery pass by, trying to remember if he'd been on this road before, in this car, with this boy. He thinks he probably has, even if he doesn't have the concrete memory to back it up. Harry sings along to anything and everything that comes on the radio. He can tell Harry is a professional singer even though he's just goofing off; what Louis can't figure out is why he's in a boyband with four other people if he's got a voice like this. He's way out of Louis' league, vocally speaking.

The bungalow, when they arrive, is blissfully quiet. Harry explains the rarity of that with a pleased expression.

"Usually fans figure out where we are and where we're going. It can be a bit overwhelming."

"Do you ever get used to it?"

"No, not really, but. It gets easier to deal with, I guess. Come on, help me with the stuff." Harry passes the two duffle bags to Louis and stacks two of the grocery cartons. "You feel like pasta for dinner? I can make pesto; I know it's your favorite."

Seventeen year old Louis absolutely hated pesto, but seventeen year old Louis in twenty two year old Louis' body feels his stomach grumble happily at the suggestion.

"When did I start liking pesto?" Louis asks, helping Harry balance the boxes so he could unlock the door. "I don't remember liking it."

"You hated it until I made it for you," says Harry. "I use more cheese, or something? But you always ask for it on days off. I can make marinara if you'd rather."

Louis shakes his head. "Now I want to try this pesto."

Harry smirks. "You'll love it. Why don't you go shower? I'll bring everything else in and start making dinner; I bet you feel all icky from the hospital."

Somehow, Louis doesn't have to explore the house to know the bathroom is the third door on the left. Somehow he knows the red towel is his, and that the green bag will have his clothing and his toiletries. He knows this house, he realizes. At some point in the five years he'd lost, he'd been in this house enough to know it as well as he knows his childhood home. He wishes he knew why.

He emerges from the bathroom, freshly clean and wearing sweats and a loose t-shirt, rubbing his hair with the towel.

"Why do I know this house?" he asks Harry, sitting on the kitchen counter and continuing to dry his hair. "How'd I know the hot water knob sticks when you try to shut it off unless you wiggle it, and you have to be careful with the water temperature so you don't get burned? How do I know where stuff is?"

Harry frowns and stirs at his pasta sauce. "Well, you've been here more times than I can count. Maybe you have like. Muscle memory, or something." He spoons pasta into flattish bowls and pours green sauce over the top. "Come on, eat, and I'll start giving you the crash course."

After dinner, Harry sits Louis down in the kitchen, a laptop on the table and two steaming mugs of tea on saucers.

"So the deal is, we have two weeks to either get your memory back or get to a place where you can function as an active member of the band," Harry says. "But we're not just going to let you on the internet. That's a bad idea for us with _all_ our memories--you plus internet plus no context means that your brain'll probably explode or something. Not to mention there's a ton of stuff out there that's just plain not true."

"So...how is this going to work?"

"Well, the lads and our mums worked together while you were in hospital and assembled three primers with video clips and photos so we can ease you in."

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to be absolute crap at telling these stories?"

Harry startles into a laugh. "Um. I am horrible at telling stories, maybe. Everyone calls it a 'Harry story' because I can turn anything interesting really boring really quickly."

Louis frowns. "How did I know that?"

"Dr. Hall said you probably had the memories since you didn't have any active brain damage, and you're just having issues accessing them. So maybe you have knowledge but you don't realize you have knowledge?"

Louis blinks. "That almost made sense. Okay. Primer? Powerpoint? Whatever, let's get going."

Harry thumbs over the laptop mousepad and the computer whirs to life. "Right. So your parents split about two months after your memories stop. You never told us why--"

"Irreconcilable differences," Louis says flatly. "I talked to mum in the hospital.  I remember Dad wanting to change jobs and move somewhere else, and Mum wanted to stay in Doncaster, but how that ended in a divorce I don't actually know."

"Sorry, Louis," Harry says softly, and Louis offers a sad smile. It hurts, thinking his parents are divorced, no matter that it happened five years ago for them. For Louis, it's only happened in the past week, and he's struggling to catch up and process it.

Instead of saying this--because the look on Harry's face suggests he understands--Louis simply gestures for Harry to continue.

"Right. So. After your parents split, you finished your A-Levels but you also picked up a few jobs to help your mum out with the girls. That's part of the reason you're so proud of One Direction; you're providing for them, and you love being able to do that." Louis smiles because--yeah, even minus five years, that sounds like him. "When you turned eighteen, you tried out for the X-Factor on a whim--"

"Hannah, right?"

"Yeah, Hannah talked you into it." Harry clicks to the next slide. "If I'm going too slow or too fast or if you have questions, tell me."

When they watch Louis' audition, Louis winces and a memory stirs at the back of his mind.

"I was terrified," he says slowly. Harry pauses the video right as Louis starts to sing. "I wanted to throw up, but there was this woman in the front row, and she had a, a teacup poodle in her handbag. I had to keep from laughing the whole way through." He grins, proud that he's recalled anything at all. Harry grins with him, proud of Louis for remembering.

"That's great! Anything else?"

"Sorry, just that," Louis apologizes, making a face. "I remember a bathroom for some reason--odd green tiling?"

Harry breaks out into a grin. "Keep working on that memory. But so, uh, you remember X-Factor but not your parent's divorce?"

"No, I--never mind."

Harry only looks intrigued. "No, go on."

"I remember, like, flashes. Stuff that's not in context. I remember being sad and playing with my sisters at the park, but if you hadn't told me my parents had...divorced, I wouldn't have realized that memory was because Mum and Dad were fighting. I still don't remember what they were fighting about."

"Maybe we should call Dr. Hall about that?"

"After the powerpoint," Louis says firmly, and Harry acquiesces.

They watch Harry's audition clip next, followed by the other boys in quick succession; Louis tries to remember, but nothing comes up.

"It's okay," Harry soothes, when Louis gets frustrated and nearly knocks over his mug of tea. "They were at different auditions than we were."

Louis still frowns. "I still don't remember meeting you."

"That's okay," Harry stresses. "I remember, and you will too, eventually."

They shuffle through the bare bones outlines of the past five years, pausing occasionally to flip through facebook photo galleries and watch clips of themselves on youtube. They continue through their first post X-Factor interview, to a series of performance clips, through their music videos and more recent interviews. They watch the younger versions of themselves get their hearts broken and put back together, and watch as their career takes off to new heights. It's maddening, because Louis is left with a case of deja vu and an intense desire to take an ice cream scoop to the damaged parts of his brain.

When they reach the week before Louis' accident--Louis is very sure Harry is culling the most memorable interviews and performance clips, because four years of being in a very high-profile boyband and multiple world tours _must_ have produced more than three hours’ worth of material--Louis sighs deeply and debates the merits of making another cuppa so he can drown himself in it.

"So that's our official history," Harry explains, leaning back in his chair. "Any questions?"

"By official, you mean the stuff we're allowed to talk about in interviews, right?"

"Got it in one."

"Okay, question: when did I officially break up with Eleanor?"

Harry snorts. "Well, first of all, you were never actually together. To the public, you dated for about two years and broke up...eight months ago, more or less? You're still good friends. As for Taylor--yes, I knew that would be your next question--I dated her for all of two weeks, and then ditched her so we could have Skype sex and I could have an actual vacation. Um, for the record: if you ever see her at events, we all avoid her like the plague. She comes on a bit strong, and I think she's planning on dating Zayn next. He has got a type, and she sort of fits into it. Mostly."

"Avoid Taylor Swift, right." Louis nods solemnly. "What does she look like, again?"

"Okay, I _know_ she was famous before your memory blanks."

"Yeah, but I didn't pay attention to her! I know of her name, but I only really remember the one song, Love Story?"

Harry chuckles. "Okay, blonde curly hair, blue eyes. Trust me, you'll know who she is if you ever run into her." He looks sadly at his empty mug, and stands to refill the kettle. "Anyways, that's the official history, what the public knows. We've got two more presentations--the one we don't advertise but don't hide either, and the really personal one of you and me. Do you want to tackle one of them now, or wait until tomorrow or something?"

Louis bites his lip--on one hand he really wants to know everything as soon as possible, but on the other his head is already spinning from the sheer amount of information he's processed today alone. "Can we maybe watch our series of X-Factor?" he suggests hesitantly, and shudders at how strange it feels to say that. "Maybe it'll trigger something."

"D'ya mind waiting until Wednesday to do that? The lads are coming down for the day, and if you haven't remembered by then we can tell you all the fun stories while you watch."

"Wednesday is..."

"Three days from now," Harry says patiently, collecting Louis' empty mug and plopping another teabag into it. "Don't worry about it. So is Wednesday okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." Louis picks up their dirty plates and sets them in the sink. "Okay, I doubt I've changed so much in four years that I actually willingly do the dishes."

"You do, actually," Harry says, blinking innocently. "You say it's therapeutic and calming."

Louis stares at Harry in shock; Harry manages to hold his poker face for a few more seconds before cracking and bursting into laughter.

"No, you still hate washing dishes," Harry tells him through whoops of laughter. "Hate them with a burning passion. I make you put things away and dry, when we don't have a dishwasher. Otherwise you have to unload the dishwasher."

Louis sighs in relief. "So if I'm not washing dishes, how about you let me hear our CDs?"

Harry grins, still laughing. "I can do that."

\--

Their music is even worse than Louis had been expecting--it's good pop music, he's not denying that, and if he heard it at a party, he'd have no problem dancing to it, but it's not something he can imagine himself singing along to, much less performing in front of thousands of people. Their second album is much more tolerable than the first, and he finds himself drawn to various songs for inexplicable reasons. Harry later explains they were they were songs Louis either helped write or had pushed to include on the album.

"We're writing more for our third album," Harry tells him as he starts up a playlist of songs that didn't make it onto Take Me Home. "All of us are learning instruments and stuff, it's sort of like we're thinking about starting a proper band after our contract expires. It'll probably go nowhere, but it's fun. You're learning bass guitar and drums," he adds as an afterthought.

They'd long finished the dishes and are sprawled out on sofas in the common room that also doubles as a dining room and apparently triples as a mass dormitory when more than three people stay in the house. Harry's playing music from his tinny phone speakers, but even through those, it's fairly obvious they're all decent singers and sound great together.

"I didn't sing much on the first album," Louis says, leaning back against the couch. He's not sure why he's on the floor and not the couch itself, but whatever. He's too busy freaking out quietly about how alarmingly normal it feels to talk about performing and concerts and albums and recording all in relation to his life. "Any particular reason why?"

"Your voice didn't mesh with ours so easily at first," Harry explains. "Like, you were a good singer, and if we hadn't had you, our entire group would have fallen apart very quickly, and we knew you could fit with us because your harmonies were killer, but you were sort of the vocal wildcard? It didn't help you weren't entirely comfortable with your voice in a recording setting. Performing, you did great at, especially during the X-Factor, but when it came time to record you bummed notes and forgot lyrics and we could never tell if you were doing it intentionally or not."

"I probably was," Louis admits, and Harry grins.

"Yeah, you told me that when we were recording Take Me Home. But you carried the chorus of What Makes You Beautiful, and you helped arrange all the harmonies and by the time we got to Take Me Home, you finally got used to singing pop and recording and you knocked all your solos out of the park and snagged a few more than had initially been assigned to you."

When Louis doesn't reply, mulling this over, Harry knocks his foot against Louis' leg. "Hey. You're a good singer, and you've got more stage presence than the rest of us combined. Recording's a totally different animal, is all. You're really good, and we all knew that, but it took you awhile to catch on to how wise and all-knowing we are."

Louis laughs and upends a bag of microwave popcorn onto Harry's head.  
  
\--

On the third day, the three other boys join them and all but tumble over each other to tell Louis stories from the five years he's forgotten. Niall's arm is still bound up in a cast and he's still moving stiffly from his double surgeries, but his perpetual grin is infectious and Liam laughs so easily and even Zayn smiles widely when he sees Louis.

Louis knew the bungalow was important in a vague sort of sense--the residual emotions he had told him as much, and the fact that he knew the layout of the house even with his memory loss only compounded that information more strongly--but he hadn't realized it was where they formed as a true group for the first time, and where they came to ground themselves after tour. With all five of them there, Louis begins to remember flashes, especially when they all piled outside to have a barbeque near the pool, despite it being mid-January in Northern England.

"Harry convinced us all to go skinny dipping on our first day," he says slowly, surprising himself. The memory is foggy, hazy, but Louis can remember details, and no one has told him this story. Niall pauses in his conversation with Zayn to grin at Louis, face lighting up with surprise. "Said it was house rules, and tried to confiscate our swim trunks to enforce it."

"What I never said was that I wanted to see you naked," Harry says as he passes by with an armful of condiments for hamburgers, smirking widely. "I could've cared less about the others being naked, but you? I definitely wanted a good look at your dick."

"I feel mildly violated," Louis says, and Niall makes gagging noises before scurrying off to help Liam flip patties on the grill.

"Feel flattered!" Harry calls back, laughing. "And if you remember anything else, tell me!"  
Louis soon figures out that they're recreating the first day they'd spent together at the bungalow, but he doesn't comment and lets them have this.

Zayn is oddly careful with Louis in a way the others aren't--Niall acts like he's forgotten that Louis's brain is fucked up, while Harry and Liam offer help only when Louis looks like he's struggling. Zayn, however, treats Louis' like he's made of glass. Louis tries to ignore it until Zayn makes Louis' burger for him, and that's what causes Louis to snap.

"Why are you coddling me?" he demands. "For fuck's sake, I'm missing five years of my memory, I'm not an invalid!"

Zayn doesn't even bother looking surprised or abashed. "You need protecting!"

"From what? The mustard bottle? The lettuce? Christ, Zayn! I'm not five years old!"

Liam steps in and steers Zayn away, hissing something at him that Louis doesn't quite catch.

Harry wraps his arms around Louis' middle, pressing himself to Louis' back. "It's the way Zayn shows love," he murmurs into Louis' ear. "Henpecking. You, Liam, and Zayn, you all worry when you love someone. Zayn lost a lot of people recently, so he worries. He was fucking terrified when you and Niall were in the hospital."

Louis sighs, and lets it pass.

That afternoon, when it gets too chilly to reasonably be outside, Harry orders pizza and they all curl up on the common room floor to watch their series of X-Factor. Liam and Niall alternate telling stories about what happened behind the scenes, and Zayn occasionally adds in an anecdote. Harry doesn't say much, and he doesn't touch Louis very much, only resting his hand on Louis' leg in a vague gesture of comfort. When they finish the series, Niall produces their two concert DVDs and a copy of their movie.

"Might as well, right?" is his reasoning.

The only one who manages to watch everything is Louis; for the others, this is a retread of ground they've already covered in person, things they already know and still have the memories to recall. For Louis, it's all new, although it doesn't feel that way. Louis has mostly resigned himself to a perpetual case of deja vu. While he watches themselves perform, Zayn ducks out halfway through the Up All Night tour DVD for a smoke and doesn't return for three hours, apparently having decided to phone Perrie, who's off somewhere on the other side of the world. Niall and Harry vanish off to the kitchen not long after Zayn disappears, although they pop in and out to share stories and check in on Louis. Liam simply falls asleep while their on-screen selves are performing  Kiss You.

It's fascinating to see them perform, to see himself perform, and to watch the interview clips and their interactions on stage and off.

It's easy to see how they work as a band, and Louis wishes more than ever he could remember everything. By the time he finishes their movie, false dawn is starting to peek over the horizon, and his bandmates are asleep all around him. If he was a better person, he'd make breakfast and surprise them. However, he is Louis and the last time he tried to cook breakfast (or, at least, the last time he remembers trying to make breakfast, which admittedly was five years ago) he started a kitchen fire and got banned from cooking anything ever and since he doesn't know if his cooking skill level has changed at all, he'd best not field test that theory.

He can manage toast and tea, though. Anyone can manage toast and tea. Maybe coffee, since he was up all night.

_Up All Night. Heh, puns._

Part of his brain is running away screaming, and the rest of his brain is busy blaming Harry, since the sense of humor Louis remembers having was a lot more sarcastic and a lot less punny.

_Heh, punny._

He smacks himself in the forehead and switches the kettle on, then goes searching for the loaf of bread he's fairly certain is in one of the upper cupboards. When he finds it, he drops two slices in the toaster and begins to look for the Nutella he knows Harry brought with them. Failing to find the appropriate jar, he digs out jam, butter, and peanut butter, deciding to make a Crabapple Special instead.

He's shocked into a shriek when someone suddenly hugs him from behind and presses a kiss to the back of his neck.

"Holy fucking god," he chokes out, instinctively slamming his foot back into the offender's thigh and whirling to see Harry doubled over laughing. Louis whacks him over the head with a magazine Niall had left on the counter the night before; Harry protects his head, still laughing. "Warn a guy!" he yelps, emphasizing his words with the magazine. "Christ, I could've keeled over from the shock of that and--shit, my toast!"

Harry is still bent over laughing in the middle of the kitchen while Louis runs to make sure his toast doesn't cool before he can make his sandwich. Niall sleepily enters the kitchen, eyes them warily, and shuffles to the refrigerator for orange juice.

"What's the rule about yelling and being domestic before eight AM, guys? It's only--Christ, what are you two idiots doing yelling at five twenty-one in the morning?"He blanches suddenly. "Never mind, I don't want to know the answer to that. Ooh, food!"

"Make your own," Louis tells him, shielding his Crabapple Special from Niall and Harry. "Mine, mine, all mine."

"What the hell even is that?" Harry asks, enjoying being awake this early far too much to be actually humanly reasonable.

"Crabapple Special," Louis says, and takes a big bite. Niall and Harry both stare at him blankly. "How am I the one with a brain injury and memory loss? Crabapple Special--jam, butter, and peanut butter on white bread, sometimes toasted, sometimes not. Mum makes them on sick days, and for when the twins refuse to eat anything else."

"Never seen you eat one before," says Niall. "Never heard of 'em either."

Louis gets a weird look on his face, setting his sandwich on the counter. "Crabapple Specials are my favorite sandwich," he says slowly. "Or they were, when I was seventeen. Do I really not eat them anymore?"

"We can call to ask your mum," Harry suggests. "But doesn't Lottie have a peanut allergy?"

"Not that I remember," Louis replies, frowning and returning to his food. "Fuck, maybe? There's a _lot_ I don't remember; maybe that's something else for the list."

"We'll ask your mum," Harry says firmly. "Niall, if you want, you can go back to sleep--"

Niall shrugs. "I'm up. And we made cupcakes last night. I want one."

"You'll eat all of them," Harry teases, but doesn't move to block Niall when he goes for a cupboard and produces a blue-frosted cupcake. "Can I check in with Lou, for a bit?"

"No snogging in the kitchen," Niall immediately supplies, then winces. "Are you back there yet?"

"We're focusing on Louis' memory first," Harry says quietly when Louis goes pale and drops his sandwich, melting butter and peanut butter dripping onto the countertop. "I'm not pushing him, and you won't either. Go eat your cupcake in the living room."

Niall looks abashed and vanishes into the living room, awkwardly eating his cupcake with his free arm. Harry crosses the kitchen in two long strides; it's the first time Louis' seen Harry be authoritative and protective like this. He sort of gets the feeling that's _his_ job, when the world isn't upside down and falling apart. Harry cups Louis' cheeks with his big hands, tipping Louis' chin up so their eyes meet.

"Hey, breathe with me," he says quietly, and Louis hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath. "You seemed exactly like yourself this morning. I guess I don't even need to ask, but how's your memory doing?"

"I remember little bits of things," Louis admits. "Nothing whole, barely any context, and I don't know what I actually remember and what I think I remember from seeing the videos and the primers." He exhales, long and slow, holding Harry's gaze. "Why did Niall react like that when you wanted to check in with me?"

Harry flushes. "Um, we use ‘check-in’ as a bit of an inter-band code phrase for alone time with our significant others? Like. Make sure no one's freaking out and we're all good with the insanity that our lives are. It pretty much means we want a minute to appreciate what we have and who we're with. It's always been especially used for us, because we had the whole Eleanor thing, and then me pretending to be single, so we check in to make sure the other's not about to blow their shit and start tweeting stuff or leaking photos or anything. It usually ends in sex," he adds. "But like I told you, I'm not pushing for that; I want you to be okay before we try anything like that again. Right now, I'm using check-in to make sure you're okay with Niall and Zayn being... well, Niall and Zayn."

Louis exhales again, more a sigh than anything else. "It's just...I only met the four of you a week ago. And... there's all these inside jokes I feel I should be in on, and I can tell when you're expecting me to say something but I don't remember what, and it's a bit overwhelming when it's all four of you."

"Well, the lads are leaving later today, and I can start explaining the inside jokes," Harry offers softly.

"Could you explain us?" Louis asks, and Harry's forehead furrows in confusion. "You and me, as a couple," he clarifies. "Because you're really in my personal space and I'm not freaking out and you don't get how strange that is for me. I want to understand _why_."

In reply, Harry drops a light kiss onto Louis' forehead. "Yeah, of course," he says, and steps back, dropping his hands to his sides. "So, French toast or omelets for breakfast?"

\--

When Harry tells Louis about them, Louis remembers more than he did for anything else. He remembers lazy afternoons spent together, the two of them pressed close and Harry teaching Louis to cook and him failing miserably. He remembers FIFA tournaments and a football game with Harry on the touchline and sitting together in a tattoo parlor when Harry explains Louis’ tattoos in his calm, slow voice, but Louis cannot, for the life of him, remember being physically intimate with Harry in any way other than close friends.

He tries, but he cannot remember kisses, none of the thousands of kisses Harry assures him they've exchanged, quick pecks between interviews or during change intervals when performing, nor lazy afternoons snogging until their lips are sore and kiss-swollen, or the passionate after-show snogs Harry describes in detail. He cannot remember sex with Harry, handjobs or blowjobs or rimming or full-on sex, things Harry doesn't describe in detail but rather mentions that they've done.

Harry explains patiently, and Louis remembers, but he does not. He has small, personal memories now--of Niall winning a drinking game or playing guitar, laughing manically all the while, of Liam racing him on bikes and double dates with Eleanor and Danielle (and texting Harry under the table), of Zayn sleeping in all sorts of places and swapping iPods for long trips, and of Harry, all sorts of memories of Harry; and now, he definitely knows Harry is the best friend he's ever had. But he does not remember ever loving him in the way everyone says he does.

He doesn't remember their shared house, or their job, doesn't remember the thousands of people they've met or the hundreds of places they've been. He doesn't remember Germany, or Japan, or the USA, except in a vague sort of way, like he'd been too young to really remember and it was only a story to him.

Harry shows him photos, obviously amateur and equally private; the two of them on a hotel balcony, a self-shot, a photo of them curled up in a chaise lounge together, and another one where they were sharing a soft, sweet kiss. There is proof, so much proof, that they are something special and something undeniably real, two people so obviously in love, and yet.

Louis cannot remember anything, no matter how hard he tries.

Harry finishes his presentation with a hopeful expression, and there is nothing Louis can do but bury his head in his hands and cry.

Harry immediately moves close to Louis and rubs at his shoulders, tucking Louis into his side, carding fingers through Louis' hair. It's familiar and practiced, and Louis wonders why Harry is so practiced at comforting and calming a crying Louis. That only makes Louis cry harder, and Harry gently scoops Louis up, tucking Louis' face into the crook of his neck and cradling him close. They move slowly to the living room and Harry settles them on the couch, holding Louis as close as he can, making soft, reassuring sounds.

It takes fifteen minutes of cuddling and Harry's hands stroking soothingly over Louis' arms, thighs, and back, before the tears stop and Louis is able to meet Harry's eyes.

"I'm sorry," is what he says, and it's so familiar that Harry aches, because this is what Louis says any time he cries.

Instead of saying that, he only shrugs. "It's okay. You're dealing with a lot; I'm surprised that's the first time you've cried, honestly. Want to tell me what that was about, though?"

Louis drops his eyes; it's easier to talk to Harry's collarbone than it is to meet his earnest green gaze. "I remember things."

Harry grins happily, hugging Louis tightly. "That's great!"

"I remember memories that could be from anyone's life," Louis says, only a little shakily. "Memories that any uni student would have of their friends. But I don't remember _you_." He doesn't look up, doesn't want to see Harry's expression. "I remember us being friends and I remember wanting you, but I don't remember anything we've done. I don't remember us as a couple, or a band, or anything you've said we've done, and I feel stupid. I hate feeling fucking stupid."

"Hey, you're not stupid," Harry says firmly. "You were in an accident, and you're trying, and you've spent four years protecting me--no, you can't remember it, but I can, and it means the world to me. So let _me_ protect _you_ for once." He stands up and gently pulls Louis with him. "Come on, let's get tea and sort through what you _do_ remember."

But once they're in the kitchen, Harry looks down at Louis and pauses.

"I want to try something," he says. "Tell me to stop if you feel uncomfortable."

Before Louis can ask what Harry has planned, they're kissing. Or rather, Harry is kissing Louis and Louis is desperately trying to process this input. Harry's mouth is warm and damp and sure, and he knows what makes Louis melt into a kiss, a hint of teeth and a slick slide of tongue and nothing too harsh or soft but instead bone-meltingly perfect.

Louis freaks out.

\---

The next time, Louis initiates the kiss. It's two days later, two days of frustration and memories that stubbornly refuse to be recalled, and Louis has been in a perpetual state of want for the past two days. Harry has made tea and tomato soup because it's raining outside, and Louis _wants_ but his brain won't let him have it, even though all the evidence says he _can_.

"Fuck," Louis growls, pulling away from the kiss and slamming his fist into the wall. "Fucking shitting hell."

"If it upsets you that much, we won't kiss, then," Harry offers, taken aback and a little upset that just kissing Louis was making the older boy so angry. "No need to get pissed off."

"That's not the problem," Louis snaps. "I'm fucking horny, is the problem, but I have some sort of mental block every time I try to go further with you, and fuck, I _want_ to go further with you. I want to suck your cock and touch you but I fucking can't!" When Harry doesn't reply, Louis rolls his eyes. "You're thinking about me sucking your cock, aren't you."

"You can't just say incredibly hot things like that and not expect me to react!" Harry defends. "I'm totally fine with waiting until you're ready again, but. Um. You'll need to give me a few alone minutes to process that input and do something about it."

Louis waves his hand. "Yeah, go do that."

"It's not going to bother you?" Harry asks. "I can get...loud."

Louis suddenly smiles, getting an idea. "Well, don't hush yourself on my account."

Harry looks up suddenly, a light dawning in his eyes. "Are you--"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Louis says, and ladles more soup into his mug, snagging toast out of the toaster. "I was just thinking I was going to finish my soup and then find something in my room. You'll have to do something to entertain yourself, and I'd absolutely hate if you didn't do...something because of me." He lingers over the word 'something', licks his lips, and keeps direct eye contact even as he takes a sip of soup. If he looked down, Louis is sure he'd see that Harry is hard. "Well, what are you waiting for? Shoo."

Harry swallows and turns to go down the hall, mind reeling with what Louis had suggested, what he was going to do. It wasn't filthy so far as sex between them was concerned, but it was somehow hotter, knowing the time that had elapsed between them and how Louis was putting himself out there like that in a way that both of them would be satisfied, even if it scared him.

He manages to get himself into the room where he's been sleeping, and leans against the door. He takes long, slow breaths, and then puts his vocal projection skills to use.

"You out there yet, Lou?" he calls, letting himself be loud enough that he'll definitely be heard in the kitchen. "You listening to hear me get myself off?"

There is a soft pad of feet down the hallway, Louis always so quiet in his espadrilles, but no vocal reply.

"You getting hard thinking of me getting myself off to memories of you? You want me to tell you what we like together, when we fuck? And trust me, we fuck. All the damn time, at least once a day and sometimes more when we're wound up. And with performing, we're wound up a _lot_. No better way to get that excess adrenaline down than with mind-blowing sex and orgasms, right?"

A sound a lot like a sigh passes through the door and Harry grins, lowering his voice so Louis will come closer.

"We fuck enough that we know all our favorite kinks and positions. You love bringing me to the edge and leaving me there, as long as you can, and you like it when I'm loud," Harry says, breathless and palming himself through his trousers. "You like it when I tell you what I'm feeling and what I want and in return you fuck me harder or take my cock deeper." He slides a hand up his chest and pinches a nipple, through the thin cotton that was his t-shirt, resulting in a moan that Louis echoes.

He plays with himself over his clothes, letting Louis hear every noise out of his mouth. The door shifts behind him, the sort of weight distribution that means Louis is leaning against the other side, trousers around his knees and wanking off in the hallway while Harry jerks off in the guest bedroom.

They've gotten each other off without seeing each other, phone sex being a kink for Louis; Harry was always glad to indulge, but this was different, this was hotter, this was Louis and Harry getting themselves off on opposite sides of a thin wooden door, this was Harry jerking off to every memory he had of Louis and Louis learning it all anew.

"You love telling me what to do, god," Harry says, gasping as he shifts his hips up to meet his hands, still over the fabric of his jeans and his pants underneath, but a perfect moment of friction he hadn't expected. "And I love listening to you, so really everyone's satisfied all around. And with--fuck--how much we love sex, that's not an easy thing to do."

"Are you telling me you're a slag?" Louis says, voice filthy and scratchy and Harry shudders, because _that_ , that is Louis' sex voice, and even if Louis doesn't remember it, Harry sure as hell does.

"For you?" Harry chokes out in reply. "Of fucking course. It's a--shit!--match made in heaven. You tell me what to--ah!--do and I do it."

"So if I told you to take out your cock--" Louis starts, voice an octave lower than it normally is. Louis is the only one Harry knows whose voice goes down during sex, not up, and god, that just makes Harry want him more.

"--it'd be out before you finished the sentence," Harry tells him, fumbling with his belt buckle and sliding his jeans down to his knees. He moans load and long when he finally gets a hand around his dick--talking like this with Louis is getting him more wound up than he'd realized.

There is a slamming sound against the door, and Harry lets out a whimper when he realizes it’s Louis slamming his fist against the door, trying to keep himself under control.

"Ah!" Harry chokes out, beginning long, tight pulls. "It's always wild, so fucking--oh!--wild when we--fuck!"

"Is it? Tell me more," Louis orders, and Harry feels the rough sound of Louis' voice ripple through him.

"The first time, we were in our bunks in the X-Factor, and you put your hand over my mouth and jerked me off there," Harry manages around the noises threatening to spill out of his throat. He moans a little at the memory, and the sound of it is echoed by Louis. "Right there with Liam and Niall and Zayn sleeping not four feet away, and when I was done you licked my cum off your fingers and then asked me to suck you and I'd never wanted anything more than I wanted your cock in my mouth."

By now, Harry can hear Louis wanking, the rasp of skin on skin, the choked noises from Louis' throat, the rustle of Louis' clothes, the creak of the door between them.

"Keep going," Louis says. "So--close. Keep telling me what we've done."

And that--well. Harry is all too happy to obey, and whimpers. "The first time you fucked me was at Leeds, and it felt so good, felt so good, can never get enough of your cock up my arse, and ah!" Harry swallows, trying to force back his orgasm, trying to slow down so he won't come before Louis does. "Felt it for three days after, and I still wanted more."

"And the first time you fucked me?"

Harry groans at the memory, fingers tightening around his cock, gripping himself punishingly tight. "The night our first single came out," he says, voice wobbly. "We were so nervous about the next day and critical reception and the helicopter that you pushed me down and rode me to get your mind off of it. Please, Lou, tell me you're coming, I have to hear you, I have to--" he begs, and Louis responds with a long, choked sigh.

And the thing is, Harry knows Louis' noises. He knows them all, and he knows exactly what Louis must be doing to himself to produce each whimper and moan. He knows that half-choked sigh means that Louis is gripping his cock tightly, trying to keep from coming, and that particular tone of whimper means he's run a nail over a nipple.

So he says so, and he can hear Louis getting closer and closer, and that, that's what tips him over the edge, narrating  to Louis everything they ever were and everything they are and everything they ever could be.

He comes with a rush of blood to his head, the room spinning and his face flushing, doubled over and come splattered over his hand the floor. When he comes back to his senses, he can hear Louis moaning through his own orgasm, and that, that makes Harry want to go again, even knowing it would hurt almost too much to be pleasurable.

He pulls himself away from the door and searches for a tissue to wipe his hands. He's pulling up his jeans when there's a sound from the hallway outside, and he very pointedly doesn't look in that direction, because Louis walking away would hurt too much right now.

"You really love me, don't you," Louis asks, and Harry jumps because he hadn't been expecting Louis to enter the room.

"Yeah," he says in reply, without turning around. "I've sort of been gone for you since we first met." Harry shrugs. "You're very special, Louis."

"If I'm so special, why are we hiding our relationship?"

Harry turns at that. "Do you really want to have this conversation right now?"

"I can't think about anything else, so. We might as well."

"Sit down and I'll tell you," Harry says, and Louis moves to sit cross-legged on the guest bed where Harry has been sleeping the past few days. "We didn't want to risk our career at first," Harry says, voice syrupy slow. "We fell into each other the first week we knew each other, had sex within the second week. We didn't want to risk losing the X-Factor, because it wasn't just us, it was Liam and Zayn and Niall too. And I knew I loved you, but you were scared because I was sixteen and you were eighteen, and you wanted to make sure I had an escape route if I changed my mind."

Harry sighs and Louis smiles. "Sounds like me."

"It was you to the core, which is why I couldn't ever be mad at you for it," Harry admits. "But I knew how I felt and I know how I feel. After the X-Factor we weren't really in the closet but we weren't out, either? And when we went to conquer America...well, everyone said it was better if we covered up and we sort of figured that it'd make more sense in the long run to let it happen; make our money now, and since we were sure about how we felt we could have money saved up for later. By the time we were well-established, we'd been lying for so long we couldn't disentangle and tell everyone the truth, so we just let it go on, and it all came to a head the day of your crash."

"What happened?"

"I wanted to come out; have a twitcam, explain the truth, let everyone know about us, without dealing with our management. You didn't want to yet, you wanted to control the information flow and get management on our side first. We got into a blistering fight about it, and you left in a huff. I was pissed at you, but I still phoned Niall and got him to go after you; that's why you both were in the car when you crashed. Nick came over to ours, and he had my mobile so I wouldn't get upset at your texts and call you and say something too damaging; you were both sniping at each other, and Niall said you were texting and waiting at a red light when the other car skidded out and slammed into you."

Louis sits in silence, and nods eventually. "I can't imagine being mad at you for that now," he says quietly. "But I don't remember why I might have started that argument, either."

Harry doesn't reply, just shrugs and sits on the floor so he can lean back against the bed. "I can't anymore, either. It's forgiven and forgotten, Lou. That's how it always goes with us."

There is so much he wants to say--he wants to tell Louis about how there was never anyone else for him after they met in that bathroom, and how Louis is nothing he could have ever dreamed for himself but is everything he's ever wanted or needed, wrapped up in bright blue eyes and soft brown hair and calloused hands, and how he'll love Louis until his dying breath. He wants to tell Louis about the first time they said 'I love you', and the time they told their families, and their first real date. He wants to tell Louis about everything they've ever fought about, and all the ways they made up.

But he knows it'll be too overwhelming right now, and they've got time. So he reaches for Louis' hand and presses a kiss to Louis' knuckles, and this time--Louis doesn't pull away. Harry leans up, and Louis leans down, and they share a kiss, and it's absolutely perfect.

Then Harry smiles and offers Louis a pair of clean boxers and pajama pants, and everything is as it should be.

\--

"I missed you," is what Harry says later, when they're cleaned up and sitting together in the kitchen to eat warm soup and drink tea. "I hadn't realized, because...well, you were you, but I missed the smile you saved just for me. I missed holding you."

"I wish I could say the same," is Louis' reply. "But I still don't have my memories. I've got you, though. You'll have to remember for me."

Harry smiles into the back of Louis' neck; Louis can feel the smile when Harry presses a kiss there, and then pulls away to eat his toast.

"How is this going to work?" Louis asks, after another long, comfortable interval of silence. "You and me, out in the real world? I don't think I can hide loving you, not when it's all so new to me, even if I did hide it all those years. I'd feel like I was losing even more time."

"We'll talk to Modest," Harry says. "Figure out a plan. The lads will back us, and we've been leading up to it anyways. We'll be fine, you and me."

The next day, when the leave the bungalow to teach Louis about London, he almost believes it.

\--

Louis never gains all of his memory back; he still gets flashes of emotion and location and actions that he can't explain. He gains back enough he can function without stumbling over the years his brain has decided to lock away, and Harry still shows him photos, tells him stories, waits patiently for Louis to remember, isn't disappointed when he can't.

They discover Louis is more forgetful now, with new memories. He tries, but not everything seems to store in his brain; now, he forgets keys, misplaces his phone, can't remember the answer to questions he's already asked. Harry picks up the slack and glares at anyone who dares comment. He's Harry, so his glares aren't all that effective, but most people shut up and back off anyways.

It takes a month for Louis to be able to sing all his solos without stumbling, and another month for him to manage choreography. His determination isn't affected at all, and Harry spends many, many evenings helping Louis memorize laundry lists of things One Direction has done so Louis can participate in interviews again.

The public never learns what, exactly, happened to Louis in those two months he dropped off the radar; anytime anyone asks, One Direction as a band closes ranks around Louis and protects him; when Louis stumbles over answers he should know, one of the others steps in and redirects the question so smoothly that no one even notices.

Some days are better than others--Louis will remember his and Harry's first kiss, or one of the thousands of kisses between then and now, or he'll be able to link a sensory memory with a concrete event, and it's impossible to wipe the smile off his face on those days. Some days are worse--he'll forget something he's learned or lose a memory he fought hard to gain back, and it will take hours to talk him back into a small smile.

It's hard, and it never gets easier, but Louis is strong and determined to regain his feet, to be able to walk again on his own without needing Harry or his band's help. He gets a therapist and works with his doctors; he phones his mum daily and starts a journal so he'll have a permanent written record of his life.

And for everything, for the things he remembers and the things he doesn't, he has Harry.

\--

  
_"...there is nothing perfect about you, there has never been even one perfect thing about you;...and thank god, because I don't want you to be perfect and I didn't want this to be perfect and I don't want us to be perfect. I want you to be as you are and I want this as it is....because you are my best friend and my last straw and everything I could never have known I wanted, because I couldn't have dreamed you up...I couldn't even have come close. And if that's too much I mean it anyway, and if it's not enough then tell me what will be. Tell me where I have to go or what I have to do, because I don't want to be a better person or a worse one...I just want to be your person, because you are enough for me, and too much for me, and I will never stop loving you, no matter what happens, no matter the price."_  - we were emergencies, gyzym


End file.
